Family Fridays: Stanley Family

It’s something you can’t quite ignore when you walk up to the Stanley home. It’s big. It’s wood. And it’s meant to be lit up. It’s not a fireplace… it’s a menorah! I love people like the Stanleys. They are in love with God and in love with proclaiming it. Homeschooling brought them to laying claim of the Messianic Jewish beliefs in 2006. Messianic Judaism is a modern day movement that combines Christianity (the belief that Jesus is the Messiah) with element of Jewish traditions-i.e. celebrating Hanukkah.

Nikkoly immensely enjoyed teaching 1st and 2nd grade in both private and public schools for 7 years. Right as her career was taking off she had a dream and felt God called her to homeschool. The only experience she had had with homeschoolers was less than pleasant. Children re-entering her classroom after being at home had a lot of trouble. Homeschool moms kept clear of her at church. Nothing at that time would have made her think homeschooling would be the best option for her kids, except the Lord’s word to her. She spent much time researching and came up with a plan. At first, she had a very rigid teaching method. She taught exactly like she had in her classroom. But as her daughters grew and they each required different learning processes, she relaxed and even did a period of Unschooling. During this time they read for hours, one of the reading subjects being Judaism. After much reading, they were convicted to adopt this belief system.

Four years ago they were delighted to find out that Dennis and Nikkoly’s families emigrated from Bohemia in the late 1890s together! Finding out she was bloodline Jewish gives her chills. The Bible says in the End Times that Jews will gather from the 4 corners of the world. She has read a lot of stories of people convicted to be Jewish before knowing they are bloodline Jews. For Nikkoly, it’s one more example that “God ordains our steps”.

Dennis and Nikkoly have been married 22 years and have 5 girls together. Their youngest Gabi, 12, attends the co-op. Gabi is a tender-heated young lady who is one of the older kids in the Co-op Café Class.

A passion that Dennis gets to call his job is being a firefighter at a very busy downtown Seattle firehouse for the past 17 years. Almost 5 years ago they moved to Wenatchee to live in the sunshine, but Dennis enjoys his job and co-workers so much, he chooses to commute once a week to Seattle.

Since the age of 4 Nikkoly had Lyme’s disease, except she didn’t know it. She was really sick and lived on antibiotics her entire childhood. Some days were worse than others. “There was many times I thought I was going to die”, Nikkoly says. She went to all the doctors; they had no answers; year after year, no answer to her unexplained illness.

After years of prayer, the Lord answered thru her cousin. She had read an article in a magazine about Lyme’s Disease and saw that Nikkoly had all 52 symptoms listed in the article. Nikkoly went to the doctor and he laughed at her. Then after a serious conversation with him, he said, “ok, show me your bulls-eye rash”. This was a benchmark indicator of someone who has Lyme’s. She lifted her shirt to show him the rash on her stomach. She had never bothered to show it before, assuming it was nothing. He gave her medicine, which almost killed her.

She was immensely weak for a year. It was a constant struggle of decisions of what should could do physically that day. The cost of healthcare was so high she had to quit what little help she was getting. She decided to delve deeper into natural healing. She would pray to God while at the grocery store “what foods will help heal me?” and choose those foods. In essence having God be her doctor.

One pivotal conversation with fellow CCHC mom, April Burnett, turned her towards an essential oils protocol for Lyme’s Disease. After 4 months of that therapy, she began to heal. Now she is well on the road to recovery- it’s been about 4 years since her oil therapy. With the amount of knowledge she has gained thru experience and much research, her friends encouraged her to share it with the rest of the world. So she started her own business, Really Live Wellness.

Really Live Wellness is a biofeedback based program. It reduces stress in the body by sending information that the body wants in the wave forms and frequencies. It allows the body to heal itself. I personally have been a happy recipient of this treatment to help with my thyroid.

There’s a lot of skepticism about biofeedback. Nikkoly has been called a witch many, many times. She’s an unfortunate victim of people making judgment calls on things they haven’t researched. But for Nikkoly, this is nothing new, “It seems I am always swimming up stream! Who invented physics? God. Tesla figured this out a long ago. He could build a car, but, to the government, he could not cure a person”.

Homeschooling has had as much an impact on her life as it has her children. The next time you see Nikkoly, Dennis (he attends co-op now and then!) or Gabi, say hello!